Published on Monday, October 16, 2017 By Tatiora In Offworld Dev Journals

From the desk of Manuel ValenciaCEO, Icarus InvestmentsContractor, Seneca Inc.

Losing Icarus Investments was a blow, and by most accounts should have been the end for me.

Lucky for me, my mama ‘didn’t raise no quitter,’ as the saying goes. It took some time, and more than a little convincing, but I finally found someone who didn’t see my previously failed venture as a bad thing, but rather a stepping stone into something greater. I preferred being my own boss, but joining Paulo Rubini at Seneca, Inc. wasn’t a terrible alternative.

Published on Thursday, October 12, 2017 By Island Dog In GalCiv III News

v2.6 Improves Trade Routes, Colony Events, Game Balance, and More!For a detailed list of updates, view the changelog at the bottom of this post.

Crusade Expansion-Only Updates:

Ideology AdjustmentMalevolence is fun! At least, that's what they keep telling us. We've reworked the Malevolent Ideology tree in Crusade to give a general bonus in negotiations rather than focusing on minors.

Starting CitizenOne is the loneliest number, so let's give you a friend! All of your new games will now start with a citizen so you can put them to work right away managing your economy, spying on enemies, or whatever else it is you coerce your friends into doing for you.

New Starship MissionYou'd better "be-leaf" it: a new mission to harvest Aurorus Trees is now available for you to take! You can use what you gather from them to fuel improvements or promotions for your citizens.

Colonization Events: Many of the colonization events are receiving updates to make the "evil" choice more profitable than before. We want to make sure that the urge to be malevolent isn't suppressed by players wanting to make sure they get the better benefits through benevolence or pragmatism. Now there's equal opportunity for all!

Trade Routes: We've decreased the amount of money you get from trade routes, but we've also substantially increased the number of trade routes that you can have. This makes trading empires a lot more interesting and lets you branch out even further into the galaxy.

Multiplayer: Custom factions are now available in multiplayer games! Until now, you've only been able to play with pre-made civilizations - now your personal creations can conquer the galaxy and take out your friends.

Mercenaries: The mercenary ships that you can hire from the Galactic Bazaar have been updated in order to align them better with recent economy updates.

Polish: Every time we play, we find something to improve. We've been working closely with our community to identify bugs and problems, so there are lots of "quality of life" improvements in this update.

The v2.6 update is ready and waiting for you in your Steam client! If you haven't already joined the Crusade, you can take advantage of the Stardock Community Discount and get 10% off when you buy the expansion direct from us. Also available for purchase on GOG or Steam.

Cities can be built any number of times on a planet but now have 1 Promethium cost. The idea is that if you have lots of Durantium, you should probably build up with Factories. If you have lots of Promethion, you can build up with cities.

Prototype Hyperdrive base mass use reduced from 8 to 6 but now uses 10% of the ship's mass.

Prototype Hyperdrive moves reduced from 5 to 2 to conform to other component performances.

Thrusters made smaller but cost more.

Thrusters now faster.

Fixed typos in Tutorial_Refuge_FlavorText.xml and added in the tutorial text to explain changes from 2.5.

AI more careful about getting overextended with too many wars.

Ripe for conquest Diplomatic mod now takes more personality traits into account.

AI is a little more wary of going to war with lots of other players.

Updated description for personality traits to be more explicit in what they mean.

Changed planet word on the street text better grammar.

Building a shipyard with a constructor in crusade will now refund an administrator

Pirates are slightly more frisky.

Turn time improvement.

Made it so that the rename object dialog always appears on top (otherwise it has issues when bringing it up in places like the planet govern screen)

Fix for missing strings in base campaigns

Reduced power of some of the ideological events.

Slave trade route benefits balanced to not provide quite as much approval bonus as well as reduce production bonus.

Balance pass on base game improvements.

Political Mastery military manufacturing reduced from 20% to 10%

Planetology +1 raw production bonus removed

Starport level bonus increased from 0.3 to 0.5 military production

Space Elevator manufacturing level bonus increased from 0.3 to 0.5

Fusion Power Plant and other high-level mega improvements reduced in effect

Updated Mercenary abilities

Certain high-level improvements no longer provide an empire-wide bonus (particularly ones that can be built over and over...)

Drengin slave improvements don't increase population cap anymore.

More balancing to ideological events.

Pirate event more common

Evil motivation traits reduced from doubling to something more reasonable

Updated and rebalanced Mercenary components just for the Mercenaries DLC.

DLC Mega events:Pirates start with some techs that make them move faster, get some money up front.

DLC Mega events: The Artifact diplomacy points reduced from 5 to 1 so that you don't just instantly win.

Updated base game Manufacturing improvements to work better with the "All Construction" adjacency bonuses.

Map generation balance fixes to make Crusade/base game let idiotic in their resource generation.

Battle Initiation Window doesn't pop up when you are attacking an asteroid

Added a Crusade specific FOW coloring.

Added a Crusade specific starbox.

Increased number of trade licenses that techs provide

Tiny hull cost increased from 20 to 25

Tiny hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Tiny hull acceleration increased from 0.2 to 0.3

Tiny hull max speed increased from 0.2 to 0.3

Small hull cost increased from 30 to 40

Small hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Medium hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Large hull cost increased from 150 to 250

Large hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Huge hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Huge hull logistics cost increased from 12 to 15

Starbase maint increased from 1 to 3

Trade Route income reduced from 5% of planet income to 3%.

Snathi get 4 instead of 3 trade route licenses with Xeno Commerce in order for Stardock to survive their inevitable culling of Earth.

More typo fixes.

Rework to various colonization events to give the evil choice more goodies because evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Starports now cost 1 maint.

UI

Added personality traits to Diplomacy Report Window

Fixed quirkiness with the "Allow Clear Queue" governor option

Fixed issue where having an empty modifier list in the improvement tooltip would mess up the display

Added confirmation for when obsoleting a ship design in the designer landing window

Added new hotkey for building asteroid mining base (defaults to "B")

Added tooltips to the fleet stats entry in the main game window saying what each stat represents

Fleets now use the closest star system plus roman numerals for their name when 'creating' a new fleet ('creating' meaning when a single ship becomes a fleet)

Fixed small space at the bottom of the command buttons list in base game mode

Added Design Author field to the ship style set editor that shows the ship design's author (hides if it's a core ship design)

Bugs

Fixed issue where the city improvements were showing as lit up and available to build when there were no more tiles left to place the city on

fixes issues with some hotkeys not working, like CTRL+S, as well as being unable to assign those keys with flags correctly

Fixed issue where fleets were getting hidden underneath things like asteroids and rally points when you select the fleet

Fixed issue where clicking on a different improvement in the planet's build queue would not update the Rush button's tooltip with the correct rush cost

Fixed issue where a few of the ship components with abilities were not showing up in the fleet/ship abilities list

Fleet/ship context windows are no longer rounding down numbers to the stat breakdown tooltip giving inaccurate info for the weapons and defenses

Erragis now correctly gives the kinetic damage reduction to all ships in the fleet, instead of just itself

Fixed error that was setting the wrong spinner for the custom faction's second material def

Precursor anomalies now correctly actually give Antimatter and Elerium when you survey them

Added checks to prevent asteroids related crashes.

Updated research video for base game tutorial.

You can longer upload cheesed factions to the workshop

Fixed issue where when the AI would fall-back to governors, the governor would queue up durational projects as regular improvements, causing the icon to show up on the colony map

Made it so that whenever a new governor is assigned to the colony, the governor takes action immediately, instead of waiting for the next turn

Added new checkbox to the Govern Planet and Govern Planet With Production Wheel windows that enables/disables allowing the governor to clear the production queue whenever a new one is assigned

Factions that start with techs no longer start researching a high level tech without your permission.

The economy dot on the production wheel no longer pops out on Govern screen

Fixed issue where base game "classic" saves weren't showing the message to load the classic branch in steam

Fixed issue where you could click a tab in the civ builder a second time to de-select it, which would then prevent the line next to it from un-highlighting whenever switching to another tab

Fixed an MP crash related to the godlike AI

Fixed issue where pressing the "save" button in civ builder wouldn't leave the civ builder when it finished saving

Optimized UI code to get a perf boost

Added base production points to manufacturing/research/income production tooltips

Fixed issue where functional components in the ship designer weren't taking the player's techs into account

Fix for issue where player made ship components would be loaded twice, showing up as duplicates

Fix for issue where DLC custom ship components would show up twice in the ship designer if launched from the main menu

Moved improvement gfx from Mercenaries to base gfx folder because Crusade uses them too

Improvements that use Arnor spice now charge you only once instead of every turn.

Increase drawing performance on higher resolution displays

Fixed the "Death Furnaces" ideology description to match its effect

Made the planet window not display manufacturing for military if the planet isn't sponsoring a shipyard

Eject all button on planet UI of planets that are not yours

Fix for odd behavior in MP that can result in a crash for the host in the United Planets system.

Disabled the required win ratio for UP resolutions because no one really understood it.

Fixed issue where the resource log wasn't being updated for administrators whenever you bought a mercenary

Fixed issue where you could get infinite legions if you had a stationed general on a planet

Crusade

Gameplay / Balance

Custom factions are available in MP

Research improvements now have a maint of 0.5

Research buildings no longer have a Promethion cost

Research-based Wonders require Arnor Spice to construct

There's no limit on the number of cities you can have on a planet but they now cost 1 promethion in addition to food. Again, the idea is that if you have lots of Durantium, use factories to increase the productivity of your population but if you have lots of promothion then people are probably a better bet.

Prototype Hyperdrive moves reduced from 5 to 2 to conform to other component performances.

Drengin labor camps and such only provide 0.1 population cap increases instead of a full point.

New mission: Aurorus tree expedition

AI is more careful about getting overextended with too many wars.

Ripe for conquest Diplomatic mod now takes more personality traits into account.

AI is a little more wary of going to war with lots of other players.

Updated description for personality traits to be more explicit in what they mean.

Changed planet word on the street text better grammar.

Building a shipyard with a constructor in crusade will now refund an administrator

Pirates are slightly more frisky.

Turn time improvement.

Made it so that the rename object dialog always appears on top (otherwise it has issues when bringing it up in places like the planet govern screen)

Fix for missing strings in base campaigns

Reduced power of some of the ideological events.

Slave trade route benefits balanced to not provide quite as much approval bonus as well as reduce production bonus.

Balance pass on base game improvements.

Political Mastery military manufacturing reduced from 20% to 10%

Planetology +1 raw production bonus removed

Starport level bonus increased from 0.3 to 0.5 military production

Space Elevator manufacturing level bonus increased from 0.3 to 0.5

Fusion Power Plant and other high-level mega improvements reduced in effect

Updated Mercenary abilities

Certain high-level improvements no longer provide an empire-wide bonus (particularly ones that can be built over and over...)

Drengin slave improvements don't increase population cap anymore.

More balancing to ideological events.

Pirate event more common

Evil motivation traits reduced from doubling to something more reasonable

Updated and rebalanced Mercenary components just for the Mercenaries DLC.

DLC Mega events:Pirates start with some techs that make them move faster, get some money up front.

DLC Mega events: The Artifact diplomacy points reduced from 5 to 1 so that you don't just instantly win.

Updated base game Manufacturing improvements to work better with the "All Construction" adjacency bonuses.

Map generation balance fixes to make Crusade/base game let idiotic in their resource generation.

Battle Initiation Window doesn't pop up when you are attacking an asteroid

Added a Crusade specific FOW coloring.

Added a Crusade specific starbox.

Increased number of trade licenses that techs provide

Tiny hull cost increased from 20 to 25

Tiny hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Tiny hull acceleration increased from 0.2 to 0.3

Tiny hull max speed increased from 0.2 to 0.3

Small hull cost increased from 30 to 40

Small hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Medium hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Large hull cost increased from 150 to 250

Large hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Huge hull maint increased from 1 to 2

Huge hull logistics cost increased from 12 to 15

Starbase maint increased from 1 to 3

Trade Route income reduced from 5% of planet income to 3%.

Snathi get 4 instead of 3 trade route licenses with Xeno Commerce in order for Stardock to survive their inevitable culling of Earth.

More typo fixes.

Rework to various colonization events to give the evil choice more goodies because evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Epiphany now costs 2 instead of 1 Spice

Central Bank provides 1 wealth instead of 100% wealth (was a bug)

Central bank provides 1 wealth per level

Starports now cost 1 maint

Bureaucrats get 10 instead of 25 bonus administrative points.

New Improvement: Diplomatic Corps. Let's the player train Diplomats.

Players now start out with a leader.

Awe trait now provides benefit to all civs rather than just minors since you don't trade with Minors in Crusade

Interstellar governance now provides a leader upon researching

Republic government now provides a leader upon researching

Democracy tech now provides a leader upon researching

Star Federation tech now provides a leader upon research

Various high end diplomacy techs now provide a diplomat

Cultural Influence tech now provides a celebrity

Xeno Economics now provides an Entrepreneur upon researching

Xeno Farms now provide 0.5 food per level instead of only 0.3 (along with all the upgrades)

Various recruit projects on planets cost less but now require a special resource.

You can now recruit celebrities but you cannot yet eject them into space (patience).

Published on Monday, October 9, 2017 By Tatiora In Offworld Dev Journals

From the desk of Silas CrichtonCEO and Founder, New Meridian Corporation

Antarctica was nothing compared to this.

Yes, I used the “frozen north,” as my assistant liked to call it, in order to run trials of what would be necessary to sustain life on Mars. While my research was successful and my findings accurate, I wasn’t fully prepared for what it would actually feel like when I finally got here.

Conspicuous Consumption brings cosmetic upgrades for advanced buildingsAdd some flare to your game with custom art, animations, and audio lines. Check out the changelog at the bottom of the post to learn more about the update!

Check out the new building versions:

Hacker Array: Well, it ain't Vegas, but it'll have to do. Take your chances and make luck your mistress while styling the goofy roulette version, or embrace the retro feel with an old-style radio tower.

Pleasure Dome: Disco Inferno, baby! Tear up the dance floor inside a giant disco ball, or leave your platform shoes at home and enjoy some space burgers at a retro-styled diner. Just...don't order the special.

Optimization Center: Careful not to burst anyone's bubble while you optimize your resources in a silly bubble machine, or give your opponents a little shock with the retro-styled Tesla coil.

Patent Lab: Research some science inside a giant Rubik's cube (we DARE you not to get distracted trying to match the sides!), or get ahead of your opponents in a building that looks suspiciously like the robot's head from "Forbidden Planet."

Take advantage of the Stardock Community Discount and get 10% off when you buy direct from us!Available for purchase on Steam

Patch 1.16.17762 adds 4k support and a large number of UI optimizations to Offworld Trading company. The team also continues to support the game with balance, stability and performance updates to continue to improve the game for all players.

Balance

Increased profit from Elite Pleasure Domes by +50%

Return Claim black market now gives 2 items

Patent time penalty is lowered with >4 players.

Lowered base market demand slightly

Fixes/Perf

Fixed some AI sabotage bugs and AI is less likely to target human in Practice Challenges

Fixing built-in mods failing to register on start up

Buying out an unfounded player no longer gives them shares after they found

Fixing bug where loading a map doesn't check if a mod is required.

Fixing replay's overwriting previous match history

Fixed an issue where some text elements were not updating due to being enabled and disabled in one frame

Disabling claim canceling in the last two tutorials to fix a bug related to doing that.

Fixing strange map number return on the infinite challenge screen

Fixing issue with lobbies not refreshing properly because Steam thought we were still in a mod

Optimizing Tile network message performance by 2x

Reduced network message sizes by 50%

Loaded games now wait for the loading screen to finish before progressing

Optimizing AI found performance by 2x

UI

Added 4k support

Game Option size is no longer hard-coded

Fixed random prices bug, added warning when player has X% of the money to buy you out

Added Options Toggle for muting the menu music when application is out of focus

Made location nodes on io appear less blurry

Adjusted ceres lighting fog

Made sure Banner Notification scales uniformly as it animates in and out

Published on Monday, October 2, 2017 By Frogboy In GalCiv III Dev Journals

Greetings!

So the team is starting work on the next major expansion pack. But we also want to keep an eye on the base game.

Right now, the recent Steam reviews for GalCiv are pretty awful with most of the people reviewing it doing so because they don't like some of the changes in v2.5. So if there are changes you would like in 2.7 and beyond, this would be the place to ask.

The Steam review system is something I have and will continue to complain about because frankly, it absolutely destroys games. When it's less than 70, a game might as well not exist. So I'll be explicit, if you want us to keep working on GalCiv III, please leave a Steam review. If not, don't. If you already have, thank you!

As many of you know, I am AI biased. But I know I'm in a minority because there is another space strategy game outselling GalCiv III and, suffice to say, AI is not its focus.

It is clear that narratives in games matter. GalCiv has a quest system ala Fallen Enchantress/Sorcerer King. But we have tried to avoid doing that because we don't want the game to be a series of scripted narratives. We don't plan to change that position in the base game but we are looking at releasing DLC that will do that if players want it.

Now, the next major expansion pack focuses on politics and government. So we'll set all that aside for now. Otherwise, it's all open. What would you like to see?

Right now, we have Founders and Lifetime Founders. Both get access to our internal vault of stuff. Lifetime Founders get everything we ever make for Star Control: Origins. Those who are standard Founders get Star Control: Origins and everything we release for a year after.

Development schedule

Our original release date was going to be November 2017. That's exactly 25 years from the release of Star Control 2 (The Ur-Quan Masters). Some design changes we made have extended the development time (which I'll be talking more about soon) but we will be releasing the Super Melee beta in time for the anniversary.

Some screenshots

Super Melee in action

In engine, animated, voice synced conversations with aliens and of course the commander of Star Control.

Design your own ships, share them, and fight with them either against the computer or your friends online or on the same PC.

The writing team, led by Cracked.com's Chris Bucholz, has a compelling sci-fi story that is also very much in the style you expect from a Star Control game.

We are working on a host of tools that will make it easy for people to create their own universes to share and play in.

Published on Monday, October 2, 2017 By Tatiora In Offworld Dev Journals

From the desk of Sam MorenoManager, Reclamation, INC.

I always thought that working with a bunch of people mired in debt would be one of those jobs where I ended up hating everyone and just went home to the bottle every night. These people were supposed to be degenerates who had to pay back society so that they could have their lives again. I was supposed to look down on them.

Published on Friday, September 29, 2017 By GGTheMachine In Ashes Dev Journals

G'day.

It's been a very busy past couple of weeks for us, between the launch of the new Juggernauts in 2.5 and the Steam Publisher sale we had last weekend. On a personal note, the Agamemnon and Eye of Darkness were the first two units I designed, so it was a great experience starting them from scratch and seeing them develop into the final end result!

##Friendly Community##

The other day I came across this Steam user review:

It's wonderful to see people appreciate the friendly community that has grown around the game. I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who participates in discussions, events and offers help to players on any platform. I think we have a great community and it's a pleasure to work and game with you. The Ashes discord has been rapidly growing recently and has featured a number of improvements lately. If you haven't done so already, you can join it here.